Evaluation and Program Planning最新文献

Given the rise in demand for online, graduate degree programs there is a need to guide program planning and evaluation professionals within institutions of higher education to utilize continuous quality improvement (CQI) strategies. Using principles of design thinking and CQI, the purpose of this case study was to describe a CQI project that sought to develop a better understanding of adult students’ experience progressing through their plan of study in an online doctoral program. As part of the CQI project, value stream mapping (VSM) was used to gain visibility and perspective on the actions required by faculty and staff to guide students through their plan of study. The VSM process provided information that led to conversations that furthered the CQI efforts and led to changes in the adult education program that would benefit all students. Improvement processes that lead to better quality and more positive experiences for users are valuable. This case study demonstrates the processes, challenges, lessons, and future directions in the use of VSM to better understand online graduate programs designed for adult learners.

Time overruns are the most common issue in construction projects, which have a significant negative impact on the project and the parties involved. This also applies to National Competitive Bidding (NCB) construction projects in municipalities, jeopardizing project timelines, costs, and quality standards. Poor performance by professionals in rural municipalities has resulted in inadequate infrastructure development in these areas. The goal of this study is to understand the causes and effects of time overruns by employing an exploratory and descriptive research methodology. The data from clients, consultants, and contractors consistently highlights key factors contributing to project delays, including adverse weather conditions, limited involvement from contractor head offices, insufficient consultant experience, inadequate site management, and delays in site mobilization. These delays incur substantial costs related to materials, land acquisition, labor, and market risks. The results included that 52.17% the projects experienced time overruns ranging from 24.4% to 514.71%. Furthermore, 21.73% of projects experienced cost overruns, with the highest at 19.92%. These findings provide critical insights for improving project management and addressing construction time overruns. It recommends conducting national-scale analyses to gain a comprehensive understanding of construction delays and to implement effective mitigation strategies.

Enhancing data sharing, quality, and use across siloed HIV and STI programs is critical for national and global initiatives to reduce new HIV infections and improve the health of people with HIV. As part of the Enhancing Linkage of STI and HIV Surveillance Data in the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program initiative, four health departments (HDs) in the U.S. received technical assistance to better share and link their HIV and STI surveillance data. The process used to develop evaluation measures assessing implementation and outcomes of linking HIV and STI data systems involved six steps: 1) measure selection and development, 2) review and refinement, 3) testing, 4) implementation and data collection, 5) data quality review and feedback, and 6) dissemination. Findings from pilot testing warranted slight adaptations, including starting with a core set of measures and progressively scaling up. Early findings showed improvements in data quality over time. Lessons learned included identifying and engaging key stakeholders early; developing resources to assist HDs; and considering measure development as iterative processes requiring periodic review and reassessment to ensure continued utility. These findings can guide programs and evaluations, especially those linking data across multiple systems, in developing measures to track implementation and outcomes over time.

The objective of sustaining smart, sustainable and cohesive inclusive growth, framed by the European strategy, is in line with the global commitments of the Sustainable Development Goals. Thus, an analysis of people’s attitudes towards social policy and perceptions of professional development in Poland against European development policy is crucial. The nationwide representative sample included 1000 respondents aged 18–64. The study used principal component analysis (PCA), an approach for the multi-response optimisation. The results indicate that respondents’ evaluations are in line with the direction of EU labour policy, where their decisions correspond to the planned priorities oriented towards inclusion and cohesion. The PCA analysis showed that employee competencies and priorities for individual standing can be considered strongly correlated. Competencies were also found to be important for the platform to support systemic development. However, the items included in the analysis that are beyond the scope of the ESF+ , although even correlated, are of lesser importance. The research results allow to expand knowledge on the perception of the development policy facets promoted by the EU, supplemented by themes of leadership or immigrants. The study may become a starting point for inclusive and cohesive working climate research.

This paper analyses from a gender perspective a pilot call for evaluating academics and researcher transfer and innovation activities, launched by the Spanish Government in 2018, known as the “Knowledge Transfer & Innovation Sexennium” (KT&IS). Not only women’s participation was much lower than that of men (1 woman applicant for every 3 men applicants), but also, they showed lower success rates than men in all scientific fields, with an average gap of more than 13 points. The methodology combined an exploratory quantitative analysis of the almost 17,000 applications, with a meta-evaluative qualitative analysis through interviews to key actors of the evaluation program and focus groups with evaluators. Hidden biases operating throughout and in each of the different phases of the KT&IS evaluation process were identified. This article aims at contributing to how economic and social impact of research can be fairly and fully evaluated, as well as at facilitating the design of future evaluation calls that promote the effective advancement of gender equality in all science-related activities and transfer to society.

Experts and stakeholders promote the combined use of counterfactual and theory-based approaches in program evaluation. We illustrated combined application of these two approaches in a single evaluation study of innovation subsidies, using “case selection via matching” and follow-up in-depth interviews. We conducted interviews in contrasting pairs of companies—one successful and one unsuccessful—which were otherwise similar on a defined set of covariates. Our procedure helped to reveal factors, which might be overlooked or simply not available in data at hand and hence not accounted for in analyses of the intervention effects. As such it extends beyond the average effect estimate to highlight causes of an intervention success or failure.

Townships (towns, streets) represent the foundational layer of China's administrative structure, and the quality of their credit environment is crucial for underpinning the development of a primary-level social credit system. This initiative aims to accelerate the establishment of the social credit system and cultivate a trustworthy economic and social environment. Starting from the three major fields of government, business and society, and focusing on integrity culture and credit innovation, the article proposes an innovative evaluation framework for primary-level credit environment and it can become a point of reference as a policy tool in international evaluation programs. Using clustering and the coefficient of variation methods, we quantitatively refine our indicator system, establishing a set of criteria to assess the primary-level credit environment. We incorporate hierarchical analysis, the entropy weight method, and machine learning models to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the credit environments within 24 townships (towns, streets) of Fuyang District in Hangzhou City for the year 2023. The findings underscore the need for a realistic appraisal of the current state and deficiencies of the primary-level credit environment. We advocate for the bolstering of credit development within governmental, business, and societal realms. It's imperative to leverage the normative influence of honesty and integrity culture, enhance the breadth and application of credit innovations, and thereby foster the high-quality growth of the primary-level social credit system.

Weight-based discrimination (WBD) is common and associated with reduced physical and emotional functioning. WBD is common in the workplace, yet no studies have evaluated a WBD intervention delivered in a worksite setting. This study evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of a 3-hour, remote-delivered WBD intervention at a large public university. Six workshops including 94 participants (41.76 ± 9.37 y; 92.8% women) were delivered December 2020 through May 2021; 88.3% of participants enrolled in the study and 88.8% of enrolled participants completed pre- and post-intervention surveys. Participants strongly agreed the workshop contributed to a more inclusive work environment (M=4.98 ± 0.2; 1 =Strongly Disagree to 5 =Strongly Agree); and was highly needed (4.9 ± 0.3) and liked (4.8 ± 0.5). Qualitative feedback cited benefits of remote delivery in providing body size anonymity and wanting access to intervention materials and more time for discussion and action steps to reduce WBD. Participants experienced significant, medium reductions in explicit weight bias (ps < .001), significant, small reductions in weight bias internalization (p < .001), and statistically non-significant (p = .08), small-to-medium reductions in implicit bias. Targeting worksites as a delivery mechanism has the potential to reduce WBD, thereby improving the health and well-being of diverse employees and creating a more inclusive workspace.

This paper documents an innovative research approach undertaken to co-develop an integrated assessment, diagnosis, and support service trajectory for children suspected of having a developmental disability. It employed data-driven practices and involved multiple stakeholders such as parents, professionals, managers, and researchers. It emphasized the importance of incorporating experiential knowledge adopting an integrated care and service trajectory perspective, and using an implementation science framework. The first part of this article presents the theoretical roots and the collaborative method used to co-construct the model trajectory. The second part of this article presents the results of a survey in which participating stakeholders shared their point of view on the value and impact of this approach Overall, this article provides a step-by-step operationalization of participative research in the context of public health and social services. This may help guide future initiatives to improve services for developmental disabilities in partnership with those directly concerned by these services.

Dance programs for people living with Parkinson’s disease (PwPD) offer participants an opportunity to exercise, engage in artistic self-expression, and form new relationships. While it is understood that the social dimension of dance programs for PwPD contributes to dancer satisfaction and program sustainability, the social mechanisms instrumental to program success are under-examined. Engaging with theory from wider disciplines, or “theory knitting” can help program designers and evaluators examine the mechanisms and contextual factors that make classes socially meaningful with greater detail and specificity. This study identified and examined three theoretical frameworks that program planners and evaluators could use to conceptualize social engagement in dance for PwPD contexts and inform practice. Each theory was assessed for fit using the T-CaST theory comparison and selection tool developed by Birken et al. (2018). As an example, we used anthropologist Victor Turner’s (1970; 1977) theory of liminality and communitas to identify five key areas for fostering a sense of social connection in dance for PwPD contexts: (1) selecting a meaningful dance space (2) creating a joyous atmosphere (3) marking entrance into the liminal time and space with rituals (4) embodying liminality and anti-structure and (5) inverting power relations and embracing fluid roles.